Our Nursery and Preschool
Building Strong Foundations with Exceptional Care
At Highfield Priory Preschool & Nursery, we strive to create a safe, nurturing, and stimulating environment where your child will learn and explore.
Our mission is to provide high-quality childcare, promoting child development and growth, and the relationship with parents/carers is at the heart of our high-quality provision. We believe children develop to the best of their ability when parents/carers and our practitioners work in close partnership together in observation of each child’s needs. Handing over your child at two years old, or indeed at any time, into the trust and care of another person is always a tense and difficult time. We recognise this and work with you to ensure that you feel fully included in your child’s day and confident in placing them in our care.
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Even before your child has started here with us at Highfield Priory, we ensure we get all the information we need to ensure a smooth transition into our Early Years. Children settle quickly due to the outstanding practice of our Early Years team. Children quickly become confident and secure in our learning environment which in turn allows them to become confident and independent learners in our Preschool and Nursery. We provide a home from home environment which allows children to feel secure and comfortable in their surroundings. Our sleep room facilities provide your child with the opportunity to rest in our setting, mirroring any routines established at home.
Our parents are fully informed about their child’s day, their curriculum and their Nursery life through regular newsletters, open events, parents’ meetings, focus weeks and observations. There are also many informal opportunities daily to share information regarding a child’s progress and achievements, so that parents can feel fully involved and able to support the next stage of learning for their child. Clear and regular communication ensures that we can take the necessary steps to meet each child’s needs while parents can monitor any changes that may require attention at home. Parental feedback has provided us with a 10 out of 10 rating on Daynurseries from our parent reviews.
Learning through Adventure in our Forest School
Our weekly Forest School sessions are set within our beautiful Highfield Haven and led by our highly qualified Forest School Leader.
Our days follow the rhythms of the children and the environment. We allow the children freedom to explore, play and be themselves, whilst being at one with nature. Our days are child-led; we provide natural resources, tools, equipment, and structures. We find this freedom provides our children with the opportunity to be creative and to immerse themselves in their imagination as they engage in play, and use open-ended natural resources to support their play. A place where sticks become wands, trees become forts and children become dragons! The learning opportunities in this magical space are endless.
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Forest School is an inspirational process that offers children opportunities to develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in a woodland environment. Forest Schools originated in Europe in the early 20th century as a way of teaching about the natural world. By the 1980s it became part of the Danish Early Years programme. Forest School is a long-term, child-led educational process that promotes, observes and explicitly supports the social, emotional and physical development of children. It’s also a lot of fun! At Highfield Priory Nursery & Preschool, we watch your children creating lasting memories in this setting every day.
All our children in the Early Years and Infants regularly access Forest School or nature/nurture sessions. These sessions build on a child’s innate motivation and positive attitude to learning, offering them the opportunity to take risks, make choices and initiate learning for themselves. The children’s interests along with the varied natural resources in our woodland are used to stimulate creative thinking, problem solving and skill-development, all whilst playing and having fun.
As well as the Forest School sessions, our children are able to enjoy their outdoor playground which has unique characteristics and features that offer a wide-range of opportunities to be creative, physical and curious. This may include painting in puddles, climbing on our new outdoor equipment or using a magnifying glass to carefully look at bugs in our handmade bug hotel. Our outdoor environment offers highly valuable learning opportunities and is richly-resourced with play materials that can be adapted and used in many different ways for open-ended play provision. Outdoor play is a crucial element of our practice here at Highfield Priory Nursery & Preschool.
A Curriculum that Inspires Curiosity and Development
Our Early Years Curriculum aims to develop curious and confident learners who have the knowledge and skills to access the next stage of learning at primary school.
Our curriculum ensures all children make progress across all seven areas of learning with different skills taught, knowledge shared and meaningful interactions with skilful practitioners taking place. We provide play-based learning and hands-on experience, alongside adult-led experiences, ensuring that all children make good progress and achieve their learning aims for their time in Early Years. We value children’s unique and individual needs and interests and plan our learning to reflect this.
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Our Curriculum is designed to give our children the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Through our passion for learning, both indoors and outdoors, and our determination to aim high, we encourage all our children to attain their full potential as confident learners who are ready to thrive in Key Stage 1. Our environment inspires children to learn and promotes thinking and asking questions. We plan our environment carefully and enhance learning with Forest School sessions, yoga, visits to the library and teaching our children life-skills such as sewing. Our children love visits from their local fire officers, farmers and many more who all come to our site to speak to the children about the role they play in their wider community.
Early identification and intervention at Highfield Priory, ensures gaps are narrowed for those who may be struggling with aspects of the curriculum. We plan and teach spontaneously to ensure next steps are met in the moment. Our parents support our curriculum at home through our Focus Children learning sheets, focus meetings, Facebook learning posts and daily exchanges. This helps parents to extend learning at home and helps us to continue this in Nursery, Preschool and Reception. As a result of this approach, Highfield Priory has been selected to offer support to other Early Years Foundation Stage practitioners by acting as an exemplar and sharing good practice. Through the Lead Practitioner Scheme, our managers and leaders have the opportunity to visit other settings, observe high quality teaching and provision as well as having discussions with other lead practitioners, who are working in a similar context. This ensures that our Early Years continues to use the most up-to-date practices.
Our Early Years Curriculum has a great impact upon our children at Highfield Priory. They are happy, engaged and inquisitive. They are active, independent and confident. They are well prepared for their next stage of learning, and their outcomes are excellent. Our children are excellent communicators and can share thoughts, feelings and words with both adults and children alike.
Expert Care from the very Start
We are very proud of our team of practitioners who are genuine, caring and most of all great fun!
Our team are trained to the highest level, and it is their support and respect for the children, and one another, which makes Highfield Priory such a warm, safe and happy place. Our staff are passionate about Early Years and are hand-picked to create an outstanding home-from-home environment. It is our staff who add the special magic to your child’s day and are therefore carefully selected having successfully completed a rigorous recruitment process. We pride ourselves on being able to say that we have a low staff-turnover at Highfield Priory. We feel consistency of practitioners is crucial to ensuring a secure and comforting learning environment for your children.
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Your child will be assigned a key person and this will be your first port-of-call to discuss anything regarding your child. Although your child is assigned a key person, we are a very close-knit community and you will get to know all the highly skilled practitioners who work throughout Nursery & Preschool. Our Early Years team consists of a wide variety of ages from 18 all the way through to 60 which provides a wealth of knowledge, energy and experience with every team member bringing a different dimension to our team.
All of our practitioners:
- Enhanced DBS check
- Paediatric First Aid
- Qualified to Level 3 Childcare Qualification and above (apprentices are working to level 3)
- Safeguarding and Child Protection Training Level 1 & 2
- Child Development Training
We also provide our practitioners with individual training plans which further support our outstanding curriculum in the Early Years. Our Early Years Manager holds Early Years Professional Status.
Brand New Spaces Designed for Growing Minds
We welcome children from two to four years of age in our cosy home from home. Our Nursery and Preschool both enjoy our brand new, purpose built ‘Barn’.
Housing Preschool and Nursery together helps to ease the transitions through the Early Years ensuring your child remains settled throughout their time at Highfield Priory. Opened in January 2025, The Barn contains two large playrooms, an art room, a dedicated sleeping facility and a wet room for the children to use after their muddy forest school sessions, as well as an outdoor play area. As part of the wider school community, our Nursery and Preschool have access to all of the fabulous onsite facilities, as well as our specialist staff.
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The Barn encourages children to play and explore freely with a wide range of natural resources combined with cosy reading corners, playdough areas, home corners and large sandpits in both playrooms. The environment is set up with a variety of learning areas which provide the opportunity for children to become confident and independent learners.
The Nursery and Preschool benefit from an attractive and spacious outdoor environment with two canopy areas which allow access to the outdoor areas in all weathers. The outdoor areas enable the children to develop skills that they would not necessarily develop in the indoor environment, including large physical movements such as running, climbing and balancing. We use the outdoor area as a chance for the children to develop their understanding and love of the natural world. We grow (and eat) our own fruit and vegetables in our gardens, we create and monitor bug houses so we are able to observe mini beasts, and we feed and watch the birds that come to visit.
Our Early Years and Foundation Stage are able to benefit from access to the school’s wider facilities including playgrounds, our all-weather pitch, Highfield Haven, our sports hall, library and performing arts studio. In addition to this, we are also able to incorporate specialist teachers and clubs into our curriculum which provides a great variety of enriched learning opportunities for the children, and endless adventures within the school grounds.
Smoother Transitions for a Confident Start to School
Starting your child at our Nursery has a significant impact on your child’s development as they are able to experience the full Highfield Priory journey.
Starting in Nursery provides the opportunity for our children to become familiar with not only the facilities offered at Highfield Priory but also the teaching staff working in school. The Nursery and Preschool curriculum works to provide a seamless transition into Reception Class with familiar practices, faces and places to ensure a happy and confident start to life in the main school.
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As our Nursery children share the same building as our Preschool the transition between these two classes is very simple and children adapt quickly to their new routine. When the children prepare to move to Reception, the children will visit their new classroom and spend time with the Reception teacher. They will become familiar with their new surroundings and new adults before they make the move into Reception making the first term in their new class much easier.
Children who have attended our Early Years are also familiar with some of the older children they have seen while in Nursery and Preschool. This gives them more confidence when they arrive at school. They are also more familiar with the different areas of the school as they know the school site have experience of some of the specialist areas such as the library and the performing arts studio. They also have experience of some of the specialist sessions such as Forest School.
Having these transitional processes in place helps to give our Nursery children moving into Reception confidence and an effective springboard to their learning.
Fees
We believe that high-quality care should be accessible to as many families as possible. In a world of rising costs, we are committed to ensuring the price of the Highfield Priory experience remains achievable for parents. In Nursery and Preschool, we accept the 15 and 30 hours Early Education Funding from the government.
Nursery – 2 years old (full day)
£73.95
Nursery – 3 years old (full day)
£64.75
Pre-School – Aged 3+ (full day)
£58.50
Main School – Annually
£11,988.00
Main School – Termly
£4,062.00
Above fees include insurance, lunches, school trips and VAT.
